


may you grow up to be righteous (may you grow up to be true)

by dominopes



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Character Study, Gen, alec and jane wonder what their adult life wouldve been like a lot, for a brief scene, newborn jane and alec, there are no ships because alec and jane are like 12, this fic is all over the place sorta but i really wanted to explore alecs character a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 08:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16677721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dominopes/pseuds/dominopes
Summary: Alec isn't quite sure how he feels about his role in the guard, vampirism, and pretty much his whole new 'family' in general.But Jane loves it here - Loves Aro, adores him more than she'd adored their mother, which was saying something - So Alec stays quiet.





	may you grow up to be righteous (may you grow up to be true)

**Author's Note:**

> this is just my take on what might be going on in alec's head and i might do one for jane later because the twins are so interesting to me
> 
> this follows consumed canon -- i read somewhere that they had two parents and i've seen a few headcannons floating around about them having shitty parents or just being orphans, but for this fic and probably all of my twilight related fics, they'll have what you saw in consumed.
> 
> the title of the fic is from forever young by bob dylan
> 
> hope you like it! :)

Truth be told, Alec doesn't remember too much about his human life, but he definitely remembers more than Jane.

  


He's not sure if it's because she doesn't want to or if she simply can't, but he knows that she knows he remembers and she's never asked him anything about it, so he's leaning toward the former.

  


  


It hurts a little, to think that Jane wouldn't want to remember their mother. Their kind, hardworking mother that had been killed for giving birth to the two of them. He still feels a little guilty and a selfish part of him wishes Jane remembered everything he did so they could work through it together, but she doesn't so they don't.

  


They do lean on each other, almost ninety percent of the time. 

  


Despite popular belief, they're not joined to the hip. Aro likes to send Jane out with Felix and Demetri most of the time and keeps Alec home, where he can keep an eye on him. Alec's not really surprised. Of course Aro would know that Alec was still a little wary of him. Aro knows  _everything_ about Alec. Maybe a little too much.

  


It's not that he hates Aro. He doesn't think he could ever hate someone Jane loves so dearly, but that doesn't mean he particularly likes him.

  


  


He thinks maybe he's resented Aro since the very beginning. Since he first approached them and their mother. That very first interaction just about summed up the entirety of Alec's, and even Jane's, relationship with him.

  


  


Alec was polite, but retreated to his mother's back as quickly as he could, while Jane looked at him as though he'd hung the moon.

  


The next time they saw Aro, they were burning at the stake, writhing and screaming out in pain.  Alec remembers squeezing his eyes shut, wishing, begging, even praying for the pain to go away. Then came Aro, who brought even more fire, but this time it burned on the inside. 

  


When Aro's flames finally,  _finally_ , die out, Alec feels invincible.

  


The world had looked never looked so clear and beautiful -- oh, oh, and had he always run this fast?

  


Jane's right there with him, matching his speed effortlessly, and everything is just as it was only a couple of days ago until the burning in Alec's throat registers and he suddenly realizes he doesn't know where he's going.

  


As it would turn out, he didn't have to know. 

  


Aro appears out of nowhere, pulling him and Jane up by the scruffs of their necks, and tsks gently. 

  


"Now, now, dear children. Did I not tell you to stay put?"

  


Alec and Jane snarl at the same time, still in sync even when they barely recognize each other, and Aro doesn't bat an eye.

  


"Oh, I  _know_ ," Aro coos, bringing the vague memory of one of the village women murmuring to her screeching infant to Alec's mind. He hisses, upset at being treated like a baby. "Patience, dear Alec. We will get you someone to drink soon."

  


Their first hunt isn't one of Alec's favorite memories.

  


Close as they may be, Alec and Jane still squabbled from time to time, just as all siblings do. They fight over their first kill, tugging the corpse back and forth, growling at each other like animals, and then Alec's burning from the inside again. The fire goes as quick as it came, the first thing he hears is Jane's horrified apologies, and their meal is all but forgotten. 

  


Aro seems a little too pleased about Jane hurting Alec and it makes him want to run as far as his legs will take him, but then he sees the idolizing glances Jane casts towards the man and he realizes that if he leaves, Jane might not come with him. 

  


It isn't a risk he's willing to take so he stays and even though he's sure Aro knows, Aro never says anything about it because there's not really anything to talk about. Alec stays where Jane stays, and Jane wants to stay by Aro's side so Alec will too.

  


Adjusting to vampire life was relatively easy at first. His thirst was always at the forefront of his mind, hardly leaving any room to think of anything else, but before he knows it, his newborn year is up and he's starting to have coherent thoughts again. 

  


Alec would bet his gift that he was the only vampire in existence to classify his second year of vampirism the worst rather than the first.

  


His second year had been the year he remembered his mother in full and he missed her so much it hurt. He remembered having her eyes before the change and he'd cried tearless cries for hours when he realized that he didn't anymore. Sometimes he looks at Jane and sees so much of their mother in her it causes a whirlwind of emotions. He's happy that she's not  _really_  gone. That she's so obviously a part of them, a part of Jane, that they'll never  _really_  be without her. He feels jealous, too, because why does Jane get to look more like mother? Jane didn't even remember her, didn't seem to care about who she was and what she'd meant to the two of them. What they'd meant to her  _(heaven and earth and everything in between)_. Why did Alec get stuck looking more like Nameless Man? The one their mother sometimes sobbed over when she thought the twins were sleeping? He bitterly remembers his mother sometimes sitting with him on his side of the bed after he'd woken her up because of a nightmare, remembers her stroking his hair and telling him all about how he looked just like Nameless Man.

  


"You have his nose," she once said, her smile genuine but sad like it always was when she spoke of Him.

  


Alec scowled. "I do not."

  


Mother had laughed, pinched his nose in between her middle and pointer finger, and said, "Oh? Then where do you suppose you got this from?"

  


"You," Alec said simply.

  


She'd looked like she might argue or tease, but she hadn't. She'd just looked at him, eyebrows raised in amusement, and changed the subject.

  


Jane sometimes made that same face, if something funny happened or if someone said something stupid. She doesn't do it often - doesn't smile often anymore, not since the change. Even when she does smile, she still seems so angry. Like she could just watch the whole world burn. He doesn't blame her. She has every right to think that way after the world tried to burn them.

  


There's hardly anything left of the sweet, thoughtful sister he once knew. She’s not entirely gone, he knows that, but she's not the same as before. And it's not that he holds that against her - he understands better than anyone else in the world. But is it so bad if he wants her to be happy?  _Actually_  happy? He compares the little smirks on Jane's face when she uses her gift to the sunshiney smile she had before and he feels a stab of resentment for Aro. 

  


Jane thought Aro saved them.

  


Alec thought Aro damned them.

  


He would never say it to Jane, but sometimes he wishes things had played out differently.

  


Sometimes he wishes Aro showed up sooner. Wishes he'd saved their mother. Other times he wishes he'd just let them die.

  


The prospect of being immortal, of belonging to the most powerful and respected coven in the world, was thrilling to Alec at first but after a few centuries it had gotten old.

  


He's older than Heidi and Renata, older than most of the guard, but they look like they could be his older siblings, aunts or uncles. 

  


He hates that he envies them. They got to grow up; He didn't. Neither did Jane. The blame wasn't completely on Aro. The villagers were the ones who'd decided to rob them of their childhood, not Aro. He believes Aro when he says he wanted to wait for them to grow up before changing them, believes he'd been backed into a corner when he found them burning at the stake. But a part of him still thinks Aro'd been a little impatient. He's spent a lot of time around Aro the past few centuries, maybe even more than Jane, and he knew very well that Aro's greed heavily outweighed any shred of good he had in him. 

  


He makes a game out of imagining what him and Jane might've looked like had they reached adulthood, who they would've been. Would Jane grow to resemble their mother even more? Or would more of Nameless Man have shown up in her later years? Alec vaguely recalls their mother saying him and Jane would probably be tall like Nameless Man, but Alec preferred to imagine him and Jane short like their mother.

  


The game gets a little more complex the more he learns about 'adult things'. He sees Chelsea and Afton and how they look at each other, sees when Afton absentmindedly sets his hand over Chelsea's when they're reading in the library, hears them giggling in the halls over some inside joke. He sees Chelsea nuzzle Afton's cheek, sees them lean against each other the way only couples do. They're sweet, and he briefly forgets he's twelve forever, thinking,  _'I want something like that when I grow up.'_

  


When he remembers he won't be growing up, he goes to Jane and asks her, "What kind of people do you think we would have married if we'd grown up?" because if he can't have the real thing, he wants to at least add it to his game. 

  


Jane looks genuinely confused, her shoulders shrugging, "I don't know. I've never thought about it."

  


"Think about it now," he insists.

  


A pause.

  


"I'm....not sure I would have wanted to get married. Not in that time period anyway."

  


"What if we'd lived in this time period?"

  


Jane sighs, "Oh, Brother, I don't know-"

  


"Humor me?" Alec pleads, brows furrowing together, and like always, Jane relents.

  


"I suppose if I was older and human, I'd want my partner to be confident."

  


"Confident?"

  


"Yes. Someone like-"

  


"Demetri?"

  


Jane wrinkles her nose. "No."

  


Alec snorts, "Then like who?"

  


She answers without hesitation, "Heidi."

  


"Heidi?"

  


"Yes. Not her but someone with the same air of confidence. Someone who knows their worth, but isn't arrogant about it."

  


Alec nods, "I could see that. I could see you marrying someone very calm, that doesn't speak much."

  


"That sounds about right. I think if you were grown up and human, you would marry someone talkative."

  


He cocks his head to the side like a confused puppy. "What makes you think that?"

  


"You like to listen to people talk," Jane says, "I think it calms you. I think." She stops for a moment, considering her next words carefully. "I think you would want someone that calms you, after what happened to us," she says quietly.

  


Alec thinks about that for a moment before coming to the conclusion that Jane is right, and he tells her, "I think you would want someone that calms you too."

  


They both get a little fixated on this new aspect of their game and it's Jane's idea to ask the mated vampires in their coven what it's like to love someone that way. She asks Aro first, of course, Alec right by her side, and his description doesn't do much for them. They ask Caius next only to get chewed out and shooed away because they're children and have no place to be asking things like that. Chelsea and Afton give the best answer in Alec's opinion, but Jane dubs their relationship 'boring' and resorts to asking the unmated guard members too.

  


Unsurprisingly, none of them really have an answer and Jane decides the game is over. Alec reminds her that there's still Marcus and she makes a face, "I have the feeling we won't like his answer either."

  


He goes to Marcus without her and listens to him with rapt attention, gives him an awkward hug when talking about Didyme gets to be too much for him. 

  


When Alec leaves, he thinks of the saying  _'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'_ , compares himself to Marcus, and decides that quote is very, very wrong.

  


One good thing comes out of the game. After learning about Aro's lost sister, Alec seeks him out and asks him directly about it. Aro looks at him like he's in pain, tells Alec about how much he loved Didyme, his tone rueful in a way that makes Alec a little uneasy.

  


By the time he goes back to Jane, he's still on the fence about Aro but he decides that he can go to him for comfort if need be. Alec lost his mother, Aro lost his sister. So Aro took Alec's sister and tried to be Alec's father and maybe Alec didn't like that, but he  _did_  like talking to someone who somewhat understood what he was going through.

  


Aro always seems a little guilty when they have these talks but Alec chalks it up to him feeling bad about not being able to save their mother and Didyme.

  


_(Alec could never know the truth. Could never know that Aro killed Didyme. Alec, who loves his own sister with all his being, would despise Aro if he knew and Aro doesn't want that.)_

  


The next addition to the game comes from Jane after the discovery of halflings.

  


"What do you think our children would've been like?" she asks a week after their confrontation with the Cullens. 

  


Without missing a beat, Alec says, "They might've had blue eyes. I think my children would have been talkative. Like my partner."

  


"I think mine would have been troublemakers," Jane muses, "I think they would have gotten their cousins into more mischief than I did you."

  


"I think I would have kept mine away from yours," Alec jokes, earning him a playful slap on the arm from Jane.

  


They're quiet for a while, staring up at the stars, when Jane breaks the silence. "I would have named mine after you and Aro."

  


Alec feels so honored he doesn't say anything about her wanting to name one after Aro, he wouldn't expect anything else from Jane, and instead he tells her, "I would have named mine after you and mother."

  


Jane wiggles around so she can look at him, her brow quirked. "Sulpicia?"

  


Alec feels his dead heart sink.

  


"No. Not her. No. Luella. Our human mother," he mutters a little defensively.

  


Jane seems uncomfortable, nodding slowly before she excuses herself to the library.

  


Alec stays where he is, sifting through his blurry human memories and sends a silent apology on behalf of Jane to their mother. 

  


"I love you, Jane," he remembers her telling his sister one quiet evening, when she'd heard Jane crying herself to sleep over the cruel things the villagers had said to her that day. "I love you with all my heart. I bid you never forget it." Alec hadn't had to look to know she was hugging Jane as if she might never let go, he knew their mother like the back of his hand.

  


"Forgive Jane, mother," he whispers into the cold night, hoping that wherever she is, she hears him. "She never meant to forget."

  


They don't play their game for a while after that, talk about anything but things concerning the game.

  


During that time, Alec watches the rest of the guard.

  


He’s not too sure his mother would like what he sees; He knows for sure she wouldn’t like what he hears. Then again, it’s all a moot point anyway because Luella Kercher was long dead and would never know about the company her twins kept in their immortal lives.

  


Still, he’s grateful when Aro mercifully covers his ears when Felix and Demetri prattle on about some mortal women they’d ‘been with’ - whatever that meant – successfully blocking out their words until they were finished. Maybe Alec doesn’t have his mother anymore, but he at least has Aro.

  


Aro, who he’s still wary of, but also Aro who ruffles his hair from time to time and gives the older guard members a stern look when they forget there are children present.

  


It’s Aro who brings up the game again, his face unreadable when he asks Alec, “Dear boy, why do you not ask Jane your little questions anymore?”

  


He could lie. If it were anyone else, he probably would. But this is Aro – Aro, who knows every thought Alec has ever had. Aro, who probably already knows the answer to this question, but asks anyway. Aro, who isn’t as perfect to Alec as he is to Jane, but is kind of like Alec’s father now.

  


“Sometimes I do not like her answers,” Alec admits softly, fiddling with the collar of his robe.

  


“Because she does not remember your mother?”

  


Alec nods.

  


“Alec, you know that is not her fault,” Aro gently chides, looking a bit disappointed but not surprised. Never surprised.

  


_Yes, I know, it’s yours._

  


“I know,” Alec says, “It just hurts.”

  


“Hurts?”

  


“Yes. Hurts.”

  


“Why does it hurt, Dear One?”

  


Alec heaves a sigh he doesn’t need to take, face scrunching up with all the frustration of a twelve year old. “I love my mother. I wish I wasn’t the only one that remembered her.”

  


Aro hums thoughtfully, mulling this over. “You aren’t, though. I remember her.”

  


“You never knew her,” Alec snaps before he can stop himself. He slaps both hands over his mouth as if it’ll take back the words, but deep down he knows even if he could take them back, he wouldn’t. They’re true and Aro knows it.

  


“Alec, perhaps you don’t remember -”

  


_You know exactly what I remember._

  


“-- I met your mother, once. When you and Jane were small.”

  


“Yes, I know. You knew _of_ her. But you did not _know_ her.”

  


It’s quiet for a moment, and then Aro concedes, “Yes. I suppose you’re right. I did not know her,” and they leave it at that.

  


They talk about other things – Aro even starts adding his own little touches to the game, asking Alec questions he hadn’t even thought of before.

  


“What do you think you’d do for a living if you were human?”

  


It takes Alec a moment. “Now or back then?”

  


“Both.”

  


“Back then, I think I would have liked to be a carpenter.”

  


“A carpenter? My, I didn’t know you were interested in that particular occupation.”

  


Alec looks up at him, like _‘oh really? You didn’t know?’_ and Aro laughs, happy and light.

  


“Humor me, Dear Boy. Pretend I cannot read your mind for a moment.”

  


His lips tug up at the corners. “Alright. Um. Yes. I’m interested. I like watching the humans build things sometimes. I think, had I stayed human, I would have wanted to keep my hands busy.”

  


“Would you be a carpenter today too?” Aro asks, sounding genuinely curious.

  


“I don’t know,” Alec answers honestly, shrugging, “I think, maybe, I would’ve considered something else.”

  


“Like what?”

  


Alec shrugs again and Aro laughs.

  


“And what about Jane?” he presses, “What do you think Jane would be?”

  


Good question.

  


“I do not know.”

  


“For now or then?”  
  
“Both,” Alec answers, looking anywhere but at Aro, a little embarrassed to admit he doesn’t know his twin sister like the back of his hand like so many think he does. “Jane has always liked to live in the now. She has always been thoughtful, however I do not think she gave much thought to the future, nor did she dwell on the past for longer than a day or so.”

  


Aro doesn’t say anything to that for a while and Alec starts to think the conversation is over but then a strong hand claps his shoulder. “And you are the opposite,” Aro says – It’s not a question, but a statement of fact. Alec stays quiet, not quite knowing what to say, so Aro continues, “You and Jane are a reflection of each other. She is the sun and you are the moon. Jane lives in the present, you seem to think of everything but.”

  


Alec is still for a very long time after that, even after Aro takes his hand off of him and wanders off back toward the throne room.

  


“ _Jane lives in the present, you seem to think of everything but.”_

  


  


He stares down at his feet.

  


He’d never thought of it that way before.


End file.
